[-Flower-]

edit!!

This post has been edited by -Flower-: Today, 03:27 AM

[lanena]

By Agency IBOIS

Box Office: Kurbaan Flops; :confused:
Friday, November 20, 2009

A similar problem is facing Kareena and Saif Ali Khan's Kurbaan, which was earlier said to be named Jihad. Despite much hype over the Karan Johar backed flick about a Delhi Punjabi woman Avantika Ahuja and her muslim terrorist lover Ehsaan Khan, featuring flaunted sex scenes between Kareena and Saif Ali Khan, this film isn't exactly doing a Bunty & Babli at the box office, as evidenced through its weak screenings early on Thursday and Friday. From the advance itself it was clear Bombay opening records were not in jeopardy. But Friday actual box office is painting a worse prognosis for the film. That this Karan Johar film could actually be heading to be a box office flop, making it the first flop of the filmmaker's career. Though discerning box office observers are aware his directorial KANK in 2006 too witnessed a massive crash after opening.

Kurbaan has been allocated lots of screenings because of the banner. However Karan Johar name too is going to take a beating after this. The Friday opening in the multiplexes where it was expected to fare best, was only about 35-40%. Of course that's better than Tum Mile, but far below expectations and much below what's necessary for this film. Overseas, the film may fare better with the India, Pakistan, former East Pakistan ie Banglades diaspora which is more eager for these topics and castings about Islam and Global Terrorism. In India however, despite sex scenes being flaunted, with 26/11 being near, people are more concerend and angry about their own national security breach last year, if anything else.

The single screen response to Kurbaan has been dismal with opening collections as low as 10% in centers like Bharuch. The Philadelphia and New York shot Kurbaan is said to cost between 50-60 crores. So in short, unless all India collections show a big turnaround, this Karan Johar fare on terrorism with the cast of Saif Khan and real life partner Kareena is about to be a major box office failure of the year. The failure of Kurbaan would be further bad news for Karan Johar's next Shahrukh Khan venture on roughly similar setup, My Name is Khan, which too is set in America along similar themes.

The one Khan actor who has been able to pull it off by playing it down the middle politically and on more nationalistic themes to his box office advantage has been Aamir Khan, whose Ghajini is a bigger hit than any Shah Rukh Khan-Karan Johar-Aditya Chopra hit of the decade and whose next 3 Idiots too is expected to take a solid opening. Starting from cross-border infiltration hit film Sarfarosh in 1999, Aamir Khan has had very few flops in India over the last 10 years. 3 Idiots too is based on the culture of one of India's most prized institutions, the IITs, arguably partly responsible for India emerging a technologically advanced nuclear power by the 1990s.

This post has been edited by lanena: Today, 02:36 AM